Life operates in a very cyclical way. I often find that certain times of year can be so good to me, while others are tied so closely with pain that the very recollection of them rubs salt in a wound I thought already scarred over. The summer has been unbelievably good to me – so good to me that I almost got away without reflecting on where I was this time last year: unemployed, unhappy and unable to picture a future that did not contain the daily physical pain I was experiencing. As I looked at my work calendar, something about the date dragged me back to this time last year, like a real-time Facebook memory I couldn’t close out of.

I attribute the haze that hovers over the 9 months proceeding my diagnosis to the heavy brain fog that plagued my every waking moment.

A year ago this month, I made the decision to leave my job. A month before, I had been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. The months of pain and stress that drove me into the doctor’s office that day are a blur now. Sometimes I think it’s my mind trying to protect me from the negative emotions I associate with that time in my life. Most of the time, I attribute the haze that hovers over the 9 months proceeding my diagnosis to the heavy brain fog that plagued my every waking moment.

The decision to leave was not an easy one. I had always held an image of myself in my head – someone who could overcome anything and accomplish anything I set my mind to. When I tell people about my diagnosis and the decisions that followed, they are often shocked. I hear things like “you would never know” or “it’s so hard for me to imagine you like that.” As soon as I had a diagnosis, I pored over every book, article and blog post I could. I made a thousand pro and con lists, I tried to think of alternative schedules or work-from-home scenarios to pitch to my job. The common denominator in all of this was my brain – the mental image of myself, thinking of alternatives, trying to rationalize a way that Fibromyalgia wouldn’t win. My whole life I have been lauded for my brain and my determination and I was not prepared to lose myself to this.

For the first time in my life, my body was screaming louder than the anxieties in my head.

However, one day in late July, midway through a book on the mind/body connection of Fibromyalgia, something clicked. There was no researching this away, no way to test out of this course of my life – it was no longer me versus Fibromyalgia, it was Fibromyalgia and I for the foreseeable future. A weird sense of calm washed over me. Despite having been riddled with anxiety over this decision for months, the choice was suddenly undeniably easy. For the first time in my life, my body was screaming louder than the anxieties in my head. My brain decided to stop trying to drown it out and listen. I understood that there was going to be no healing working almost 70 hours a week in a high pressure environment.

“When your phone is on 5%, you frantically seek out a power source, avoiding any further use until you can be sure you can avoid pushing it beyond its limits. But when your body is on 5%, you see how much further you can push it, until you break it.”

I wish I could go back in time and make that decision earlier. The very day I made the decision to put my body first, I started to feel better. Removing myself from the stress was just one small step towards the level of wellness I have achieved now, but it was crucial. I read a saying that made how little attention we give ourselves clear – “When your phone is on 5%, you frantically seek out a power source, avoiding any further use until you can be sure you can avoid pushing it beyond its limits. But when your body is on 5%, you see how much further you can push it, until you break it.” We treat the technology we keep in our pockets better than our bodies themselves.

Almost everything about my life is different now. I love the work that I do and was blessed to find a job that had the kind of work/life balance that my Fibro needs. My goals and dreams haven’t gone away, they’ve just changed course. I am still learning about new challenges and limitations all of the time, but I am no longer putting my body in direct competition with my mind. I am smarter because of my Fibromyalgia – more cautious, more planful, but still incredibly determined.